The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Consumers depend on the availability and reliability of their information handling systems, and as such systems become more complex, the reliability of, and support of, these systems becomes increasingly important. Some tools, such as software debuggers, exist that permit users or support personnel to connect across a computer network in order to analyze individual systems and provide appropriate support. However, such tools allow analysis of an individual system in seclusion and are not configured for detecting hardware anomalies. Likewise, other tools, such as intrusion detection systems, detect statistical anomalies in network traffic for purposes of pinpointing network attacks. However, such tools are directed to network activity and are not configured for detecting system hardware and software anomalies.
Thus, there is a need in the art for systems and methods for automating the detection of hardware and software anomalies. Also needed are systems and methods that can automatically analyze system state and performance based on data received at a centralized database or collection of databases from a plurality of remote systems to detect software and hardware anomalies in the remote systems. Better analysis of this data can lead to more proactive responses to customer hardware and software issues, perhaps even before customers become aware of those issues. Additionally, having automated detection of these anomalies can help detect regressions in software performance, for example, after version updates.